Kubuntu and Ubuntu were the only distros where I just installed and went on my way. All others required some amount of tweaking.
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I had the luxury of owning several different machines and some time to experiment with the different Linux distributions. Each distribution that I was able to get up and running ran well. I was able to make use out of some old machines that were running poorly on XP. Most importantly, my new laptop that was running Vista very slowly is now cruising with Mepis.

By no means was this a highly scientific experiment. This is the view from a technical guy with limited systems administration skills. Take it for what it's worth. My recommendation is Kubuntu and Mepis.